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It has been a while since the blog had a bit of attention – but I have been really busy creating lots of lovely new jewellery so hopefully sharing a few of those today will more than make up for it. I am taking part in the Open Studios Ayrshire event in April this year which has given me a real focus for getting some ranges of jewellery together. It has also focused my mind on getting some suitable display designs together too, but I’ve had less inspiration on that front so far.

Rings seem to have been where my creative inspiration is at just now. Handmade rings are so beautiful, you get lovely feel to them and they have a tactile quality that you just don’t get with a cast ring. Please don’t get me wrong – I have a place in my heart for cast designs, but somwhere along the line my real love is a handformed ring. And so it is with these rings today.

Amethyst and sterling silver ring

The first ring has a beautiful little faceted amethyst set asymmetrically on a silver band that has an undulating edge on one side. I’m really pleased with the flow and character that this ring has. The amethyst is also a really very pretty colour – a clear light purple, not the most intense amethyst in the world, but with a beautiful glow to it, almost a kind of heather purple. I’ve already listed this amethyst ring on Etsy and it would make a fabulous Mother’s Day gift, especially if your Mum’s birthday is in February since amethyst is February’s birthstone.

Blue Sapphire and Silver Knuckle Ring

Next up is a ring that is a bit of an experiment for me. It is teeny, it only just fits my pinkie finger (that will be little finger to non-UKers) and is only a shade bigger than a size K. I made it this size as I was inspired by the current trend for knuckle rings that are cropping up all over Etsy and Instagram. And I also had this really pretty little blue sapphire that was looking for a home. And I always have some silver to hand. So put them together and what have you got? Well hopefully you agree it is a cute little knuckle ring!

Moonstone and peridot silver ring

The third ring for today is a different beast altogether. It is a great generous chunk of a ring, made of sterling silver and set with a stunning blue moonstone and two teardrop cabochon peridots. I am delighted with how it has turned out, but it is proving a bit of a devil to polish up, so it is still a work in progress on that front. Hopefully it will get finished soon and I’ll share the final version – watch this space!

Very often, much of my inspiration comes from nature. Plants, the environment around us, the colours, shapes, textures and proportions of waves or clouds or leaves or water all inform and inspire the jewellery that I create. Whether it is the leave of a tree, or the surface of a piece of water worn sandstone, the opportunity for design ideas exists all around. Sometimes, however, it is the much more immediate inspiration of particular gemstones that gets the creative juices flowing.

On rarer occasions, just very now and again, the thing that really sets the imagination blazing is the sheer awe inspiring work of another jeweller or jewellers. Recently, I was lucky enough to see the jewels of the San Gennaro collection. Even to describe them simply as jewels seems too trivial but much as Bilbo Baggins was without words when met with the sight of Smaug’s hoard I am not sure I actually have the words to do them justice.

The Necklace of Saint Januarius

The jewels and statues and tributes that form the San Gennaro collection are simply breathtaking. From really rather massive emeralds, amethysts, sapphires and peridots, to acres of gold, and dozens upon dozens of diamonds….and so far I have only just described the necklace of St Januarius. So what of the inspiration? Well, I tend to be quite sparse with my use of gemstones, I like space and light around them. For me, the genius of much of the gem set pieces in the San Gennaro collection was that although they were encrusted with gemstones, it wasn’t in an edge to edge pave set way of much modern commercial jewellery, it all had a beautiful spacious light touch to the positioning of the stones, despite the gemstones being scattered all across the surface. And that is a skill I want to acquire! I don’t imagine the turn around will be quick, I think I may need a fair amount of drawing board time to reach the place I’m aiming for, but for the final effect, I am going to give it a go.

Freshwater pearl and amethyst February birthstone bracelet

In the meantime, why the pearl and amethyst birthstone bracelet photograph? Well, despite the high and lofty inspiration, birthday gifts still have to be created and this pretty February birthstone bracelet is a perfect gift, especially as it is one of a kind! With only three of the little flat teardrop amethyst beads to my name, I’ve created the bracelet above and a pair of matching earrings, so once they are gone – they are gone!!

It is the birthday of one of my friends at the start of January. January is always a tricky time to find a nice birthday present, it is so hot on the heels of Christmas and yet you don’t really want to get a gift that is a leftover Christmas gift option which tends to be what the shops are full of. Don’t get me wrong, I like a bargain as much as the next girl but typically when buying for myself and not for someone elses birthday. At the same time, I’ve been toying with a birthstone range of jewellery for my crazy for ruthie Etsy shop, as not only are they pretty, but they are a lovely personal gift too. All of this is what inspired the freshwater pearl and garnet bracelet that you see before you.

I love the combination of garnets and pearls, especially white pearls. There is something so timeless about their colours together and they also have a real medival feel to them, with a bit of imagination, you can picture an affluent lady of the court adorned in some kind of garnet and pearl get up (or is that just me…? maybe my imagination is over active…). By adding a pretty garnet bead to a linked silver and white pearl bracelet, it seemed to give a lovely combination of the classic wearability of pearls and a lovely hit of deep claret wine red with the garnet.

Obviously, garnets are the birthstone for January, but I will make more of these along the same lines for the other birthstones. Birthstones like amethysts and peridot will be relatively easy as there are lovely beads available, but I can see me having to get my thinking cap for for a diamond for April. Including a diamond and having the bracelet affordable do seem quite conflicting requirements at the moment, but there is nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices flowing!

As well as the freshwater pearl and garnet bracelet as a birthstone gift, I’m going to create garnet and freshwater pearl earrings too so there is a set available if anyone desires or for those that don’t wear bracelets!

You can find the listing for the bracelet here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/175547406/silver-linked-white-freshwater-pearl and I’ll let you know when the earrings make it onto Etsy too!

Before I took a bit of a sabbatical from crazy for ruthie I had prepared quite a lot of jewellery components and sent them off to be hallmarked. By the time they arrived back from the Assay Office, life had changed and my jewellery bench was packed away for what ended up being a few years. When I unpacked and tidied up my jewellery kit over the holidays, I found the little bag of hallmarked “bits” just waiting to be made whole. One of the bits was this ring shank, so a bit of work to create the setting and a beautiful peridot later and here we go – a faceted peridot and silver ring. Although it doesn’t show too well in this photograph, the peridot is a stunning grassy green colour that suits the silver tube setting well, it is such a summery green that it seems very fitting that peridot is the birthstone of August.

For anyone looking for an alternative engagement ring (that is budget friendly too), the minimalist and modern look of would make it a lovely choice. It would also just be very pretty to wear every day too!

Christmas and New Year seem to have flown past this year, I can’t believe it is already making headway into January. In saying that though, the weather is so grim that there is no mistaking it well and truly is January. Which is my excuse for using a photograph of the aquamarine and yellow gold necklace which is bathed in sunlight – even though it has shadows and bright spots everywhere and ticks almost every box in the “how not to photograph jewellery” checklist.

I decided to have a right proper tidy up of my jewellery supplies during the festive season; it means I’m starting the new year with a very organised workspace which is lovely. It also meant that I found all manner of beautiful things hidden in envelopes and the corners of drawers. This beautiful 9ct yellow gold chain was one such find, and it is beautiful, it is really very fine, almost cobwebby, but it is also very pretty. The lightness of the chain meant that it had to be used for something very airy, so when I came across a few of these faceted aquamarine rondelle beads in a little pocket envelope, the idea came together nicely.

Although the washed out blue of the aquamarine and the warm yellow of the gold do have an definite feel of summer too them, they do also seem to work well in the pale, wan light of winter – at least when the sun shines and sadly, right now, that is a bit of a rare occurance. Which brings us back to the photograph, and since I managed to capture a few of the suns rare rays, lightbox-ing (if that is a word? if not it should be…) them out would have just been so very wrong.

It has been lovely to have a bit of a break over the festive period, but while I’ve stayed away from the computer, I’ve still been pottering away at my workbench. So with Christmas being the time for giving and all that, it is quite nice that my main project over Christmas has been giving one of my customer’s ruby engagement ring it’s sparkle back – quite literally.

After getting a bit of a bump, a few of the prongs had broke on my customer’s ring and one of the diamonds had popped out of the engagement ring. Luckily, she actually managed to find the diamond but the ring was still a bit worse for wear. Needless to say I wasn’t quite organized enough to get a true “before” picture. Instead, I got stuck right in and, as you can see above, set about repairing the ring.

The engagement ring has been worn every day for the last 30 years, so the prongs in general were pretty worn, so it perhaps isn’t a surprise that a couple had given up the ghost when bumped. I do like the challenge of a repair – you aren’t starting with a blank canvas, instead, you have to work with what is already there, and fix it up so that it is strong yet just as beautiful as before. Rather than just fix the broken prongs and risk the others failing sometime soon, I un-set all the gemstones and retipped all the prongs. Then, after some filing and sanding, it was just a case of setting the ruby and the diamonds back where they belong and polishing the whole thing off so that it sparkled once again.

And here it is – the fully repaired ruby engagement ring which is now back on the hand of one happy customer after it got a a final polish – definitely the kind of feel good task that suits the festive period perfectly!

I know, I know, more pink! This time it is a very different shade of pink though, so that makes it completely different – right?

The shade of pink of these pearls is pretty incredible. It is a lilac, dark rose, powdery pink that has quite a lot of blue tones in it and so looks stunning when linked together with silver, which is pretty fortunate since that is what I’ve linked the pearls together with.

This freshwater pearl and silver linked necklace design is a bit of a favourite of mine, it looks so very elegant and yet can work with a fairly dressed down look too. It is also super easy to wear. For this necklace, I’ve added an extender at the back so it can look quite boho when worn long and perhaps even layered or it can look quite preppy when worn shorter.

I was really delighted to be included in the Etsy Treasury – “Winter is for giving” that was curated by Wendy and so was inspired to create my own treasury today.

Since it is so close to the shortest day and seemed to be getting dark from about lunchtime, evening time provided the inspiration. As for all the beautiful handmade items on Etsy itself, well, it was a bit of a challenge to whittle it down to only 12 things to collect together. That said, I love each of the twelve items I have chosen, which includes this gorgeous “Enchanted Night” Christmas Ornament made Etchy Things which is based in Vancouver, Canada.

When it came to naming my Etsy treasury – “Eventide” seemed to be as good a way to capture the spirit of impending darkness as any. With a variety of lovely items from star sprinkled tea inspired by Dr Who, to a beautiful constellation necklace featuring Orion, to images of flocking birds, I think the items evoke the feel I was looking for – but let me know if you think so too!

This isn’t one of todays efforts, it is a necklace I listed on Etsy just when I restarted my shop in October this year. However, it is a brand new photograph of this necklace. Although I first registered with Etsy in 2008, it is only this autumn that I got my shop there up and properly running. To start with, I was quite wholly occupied with how hard it is to take good photographs of small shiny things. As a result, the photographs on the first few listings had a variety of backgrounds and lighting as I tried to work out what looked best. I think that the photographs on this white linen are the winners, but if you think differently I’d be glad to hear your take in the comments below.

Anyhow, I’m not trying to get a consistent look for the shop and so am working on and off, as time allows, to update the original listings with some new style photos. Which brings me to this necklace, a lovely green adventurine, freshwater pearl and yellow gold necklace in fact, with a focal bead of faceted green adventurine which is an absolute stunner. The freshwater pearls are dyed a dark bottle green so complement the green adventurine really well.

This freshwater pearl and yellow gold necklace is still available on Etsy, and if you get time to take a look at it, I’d be glad to hear how you think they new style photographs (white background) compare with the old style photographs (green background) which are still on this listing!

This freshwater pearl and hand forged silver necklace pendant design is one that I’ve been making on and off for quite a few years. They do say, though, that if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, and in this case, I think that is sound advice; the design still looks very pretty to my eye.

This particular necklace is hot off the press though (or should that be hot off the anvil?) and the freshwater pearl is a very lustrous and smooth dark peacock grey with a lovely reddish purple tint. The smoothness of the pearl contrasts beautifully with the gentle texture of the hand forged silver.

You can find this freshwater pearl and hand forged silver necklace is on my Etsy site at the moment and has a sterling silver rope chain that the pendant hangs from. I have in the past made matching earrings which went with this necklace, so think that those may just be making their way onto the to do list for over the Christmas period!.